Weems School

THE WEEMS WAY: A CHARTER SCHOOL COLLAPSES AMID A HAIL OF SIBLING BATTLES AND UNPAID BILLS; December 29, 2010; Cleveland Scene (OH)

A regular week at the Weems School was a minefield of surprises for staff and students alike.

For students, that was a blast: The lunch menus were constantly changing, any given day could yield an unannounced field trip, and there was always the possibility you'd show up and find the doors locked and lights out.

For teachers, that wasn't so fun. Bill collectors were clogging up the phone lines, required textbooks weren't on the shelves, paychecks were late, and regular funds from the state got straw-sucked down a gaping black hole. The whole operation, it seemed, was held together by the thinnest strands of authority.

Such was life at the Tremont charter, which was christened in 2005 and ran aground four years later. Behind the wheel was Ruby Weems, the Hummer-driving superintendent with a spotty background in education. Together with her identical twin sister Rory, Weems ran an operation that even her most favorable critics call sloppy. Those who were bilked by the school and left to clean up the mess are less charitable.

The school lasted as long as it did thanks to Weems' stable of rookie teachers, most of them just a year or two free from college. Today, more than a year after the school was shut down, a number of those teachers say they still haven't been fully paid for their work. Two have filed a lawsuit against the school's sponsor, Cincinnati-based Educational Resource Consultants of Ohio (ERCO). The teachers say ERCO should have stepped in before Weems' mess got out of hand…

Not surprisingly, the books were bad from day one. According to a state audit, the Weems school provided few or no financial records to substantiate its expenditures in its first year. The audit lists multiple occasions where Weems cut checks up to $30,000, but failed to properly document where the money went. State auditors threw up their hands, refusing to even provide an official opinion on the books…

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Mokapu STEM School (attempt)

ANTI-GAY RELIGIOUS CULT TIED TO TORTURE SEEKS CHARTER CONVERSION OF MOKAPU ELEMENTARY; January 13, 2011; Hawaii Free Press

Hiding behind the benign sounding label, “Mokapu STEM School”, a religious cult with billions of dollars in assets is secretly trying use the charter school conversion process to take over Mokapu Elementary School located in Kaneohe on Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

Mokapu STEM School organizers Kazim Gumus and Adam Oksuz propose to transform Mokapu into a K-12 school with 1,400 students in an effort backed by the Turkish Gulen Movement, sometimes referred to as the Risale-I-Nur movement.  But parents at other Gulen schools—many of whom originally chose the schools specifically to expose their children to Islam—are having second thoughts.  For many of the teachers, parents and even school board members, just discovering their schools’ hidden Gulen links took years of research.  And after years of experience with the Gulen schools, parents and teachers are reporting that Holocaust denial, 9-11 conspiracy theories, and denial of the Ottoman Turkish WWI era Armenian genocide are part of what a Tucson, Arizona newspaper describes as a “hidden agenda”.

It wasn’t easy to unearth the links between the Mokapu STEM School proposal and the Gulenists.  Gumus, a Texas Tech researcher recently hired at UH Manoa, is the only Hawaii resident named in the Mokapu proposal. An email inquiry to the Mokapu STEM School drew no reply.  A contact number listed on the Mokapu STEM School brochure is a disconnected Waikapu, Maui cell phone.  Nobody returned a message left at Gumus’ Lubbock, TX cell phone number which was also provided as a contact number.  An item in the Mokapu STEM proposal titled “Letter of Support from Kaneohe Marine Base” is blank.

An item titled “Charter” was on the agenda of the Mokapu Elementary School Community Council November 17 and December 13 and it looks like the Gulenists will be back to try again this year.  Ruth Tschumy, Chairwoman of the Charter School Review Panel tells Hawai`i Free Press, “Mokapu STEM withdrew its application for a charter, saying it might apply for the next round of chartering. The next round began in December, 2010, and the Panel did receive a letter of intent from the group.”

Movement leader Fethullah Gulen has espoused a Machiavellian approach to democracy, saying to his followers in a message broadcast on Turkish TV in 1999 that "every method and path is acceptable [including] lying to people."  Shortly thereafter Gulen fled Turkey into exile after being indicted for trying to overthrow the secularist Turkish state and replace it with an Islamic state.  Gulen movement schools are outlawed in Russia, Uzbekistan, and other Central Asian countries with Turkish populations…

Gulenists have been accused of stacking the boards of Gulen Charter schools in order to maintain control.  An email exchange between Gulenists in Ohio shows them illegally planning the agendas and preparing the votes for several Gulen school boards in violation of open meeting statutes.  As in Ohio, the Mokapu STEM Interim Board is 100% Gulen.  In addition to Gumus, the members are Arizona residents Metin Yildirim M.Sc., and Mehmet Argin PhD, Superintendent of the Sonoran Science Academy.  Not mentioned in the Mokapu application, Yildirim is a board member of Paragon Science Academy, a Chandler, AZ Gulen school.  Also left out: Gumus formerly taught science at the Gulen-controlled Harmony Science Academy in Austin, TX…

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January, 2011 Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

I read your article about the Gulenites trying to establish a charter school on the Marine base.  Your research was outstanding. I worked for Horizon Science Academy Denison Middle School in Cleveland, Ohio as a Dean of Students for two years.  I was formerly an assistant principal who retired from the Cleveland Municipal School District.  I had no idea what I was getting into until I started searching the web.  I was non-renewed or terminated after two years.  I was 59 years old at the time and I and another Dean, Gloria Catalusci, filed EEOC complaints that finally  wound up as a lawsuit.   Gloria won a sex discrimination lawsuit which was settled out of court.  She was being paid much less than I for the same work being done…

I can personally vouch for discrimination on the part of the Gulenites running these schools.   They are not even citizens nor do they desire to be.   I wondered from the beginning why a group of Turkish people would even want to start schools here in Cleveland.   When I asked that question I was told that they were "building bridges".   I now understand what they were trying to do.

Best regards, 

Ron Gehrlein

Cleveland, Ohio

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California charter schools (food service issues)

CHARTER CHOICES: GOOD FOOD, FREE FOOD, NO FOOD - SOME CAMPUSES SAY THEY LACK THE MEANS TO PROVIDE NUTRITIOUS MEALS — OR ANY MEALS; January 1, 2011; Los Angeles Times (CA) 

At Larchmont Charter School in Los Angeles, a former restaurant chef whips up pasta with fresh vegetable sauce for lunch one day; on another he offers a salad bar with figs grown on campus.

But 500 miles north, in tiny Red Bluff, lunchtime at Sacramento River Discovery Charter School is decidedly different: Students must either bring their own lunches or place orders with parent volunteers who make a daily run to Taco Bell, Burger King or Subway.

Cafeteria food at traditional public schools has long had a bad reputation, but at least children can count on a meal that's free for needy families.

Mealtime is more complicated at the more than 900 publicly financed charter schools in California. Unlike traditional campuses that must follow state nutrition regulations for schools, charters can make independent decisions about what's for lunch. Some charter school officials decide not to serve it at all, even if that might mean that the nutrition needs of some of the state's poorest children are not being met…

Lunchtime on some charter campuses "indulges the students' worst impulses and obligates the parents to pay for meals that USDA is willing to fund," said Matthew Sharp, a senior advocate at California Food Policy Advocates.

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Patriot Preparatory Academy

CHARTER'S TIES TO CHRISTIAN SCHOOL DRAW STATE SCRUTINY; November 8, 2010; Columbus Dispatch (OH) 

Out went the private Liberty Christian Academy. In came the public Patriot Preparatory Academy, a charter school in the same location with many of the same students and teachers. The state says the new school has changed enough to receive tax money.

A new charter school has the same founder, is staffed by many of the same teachers and attended by many of the same students as a private Christian school that previously used its East Side building…

The state was worried that Patriot Preparatory Academy really was the private Liberty Christian Academy masquerading as a charter school. Was the school (initially to be called Liberty Preparatory) trying to collect taxpayer money illegally when it really should be collecting tuition?

No, says executive director David McIlrath: Patriot is an all-new public school, and any links to the private school are superficial…

(McIlrath's wife, LaVonne, is the administrator of Liberty Christian. The private school downsized to just its Pataskala campus.)

David McIlrath has high hopes for the new charter school. McIlrath, who wears cowboy boots, carries a yardstick as he walks the school hallways and has spent the past several years living part time on a Wyoming ranch, said he runs the school with an air of "old-time tradition."

"Everything about it is like the public school was in the 1940s," he said. "I think it's going to rock the charter-school world in terms of (test) scores. I've got the best dang staff in the world."

In its letter to Patriot before school started this year, the Education Department made a suggestion: Consider a motto that was more gender-neutral than its proposed "Because It's Easier to Build a Boy Than Mend a Man."

The school went with two: "No excuses" and "Git 'er done."

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“Two Ohio Teens Drown in Costa Rica, One Still Missing.” ABC News, 5/5/2011

Authorities searched for a missing Ohio student off the coast of Costa Rica today after two of his classmates drowned when they were caught in a violent riptide.

The three teens...are all high school students at Patriot Preparatory Academy, a Christian charter school [emphasis added] in Columbus, Ohio. They, along with other classmates, were on a school sponsored missionary trip and were swimming at a beach near the Pacific coast town of Parrita...

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International Preparatory School

“Former Charter School Operator To Pay Back $1.4 Million It Owes State.” StateImpact (OH), 1/10/2012

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is ordering the operator of a former charter school to pay back $1.4 million it over-billed the state, with interest.

Hassina Shabazz and her late husband Da’ud Abdul Malik Shabazz ran two charters, The International Preparatory Schools (TIPS) for six years before abruptly shutting them down.

A state audit found the Shabazz’ inflated enrollment figures at their schools, cashing in on funding for hundreds of students that didn’t exist.

The Ohio Department of Education has been trying to get those funds back for years. An Ohio Supreme Court decision a year ago helped move that process forward by concluding that charter school operators are public officials who are responsible for misused or lost public dollars...

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 CHARTER-SCHOOL OFFICERS CAN BE LIABLE FOR HOW PUBLIC FUNDS SPENT: OHIO SUPREME COURT ALLOWS STATE SUIT; December 21, 2010; Associated Press in Columbus Dispatch (OH)

The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that officers or representatives of charter schools are public officials who can be held liable for public funds that the schools lose or improperly spend.

The 6-0 ruling yesterday involved the International Preparatory School in Cleveland, which closed in 2005.

A subsequent state audit showed that the school had improperly collected $1.4million in state funds by inflating enrollment numbers. The state sued its treasurer in an attempt to retrieve the money.

Charter schools, or community schools, are generally operated by nonprofit groups or for-profit management companies. They are publicly funded.

The ruling overturns an appeals court decision that said the treasurer was a corporate officer of the school and shielded from personal liability. It sends the matter back to Cuyahoga County court.

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STATE MAY COLLECT FUNDING ERROR FROM SCHOOL OFFICER; December 23, 2010; Courthouse News Service 

(CN) - The treasurer of a community school that received $1.4 million in excessive state funding can be held liable over the public money as a public official, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled.

After the International Preparatory School shut down in 2005, an audit revealed that it used inflated enrollment figures to obtain $1.4 million in extra funding from the Department of Education.

The state successfully sued treasurer Hasina Shabazz for misuse of public funds, but an appeals court overturned the decision, ruling that Shabazz was not a public official.

Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer disagreed with the lower court's finding, writing that Shabazz was a public official who could be personally liable for the extra funding.

"Public officials are personally liable for public funds," the ruling states. "Any liability that arises therefrom is not a corporate debt - it is the official's own debt."

 Pfeifer added, however, that the trial court must determine whether Shabazz was in charge of actually receiving, or supervising the receipt of, public money.

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Winfree Academy

FORMER EMPLOYEES CLAIM TEXAS CHARTER SCHOOL VIOLATED TEXAS LABOR LAW; December 23, 2010; LAS Newswire

Irving, TX: Former employees have claimed that Winfree Academy, a network of six charter schools in North Texas, has violated Texas labor law by hiring friends and family members over more qualified candidates, the Dallas Morning News reports.

According to state records, complaints of nepotism at the academy date back to at least 2001, the news source said.

One employee, who filed an anonymous complaint with the Texas Education Agency in 2004, said that "a great majority of people that are hired seem to be friends or relatives of the owners and principals...qualified candidates were passed over so that a friend of the owner could be hired. Positions are filled, not based on qualifications, but by who is on the 'inside.'"

Melody Chalkley, a former public high school teacher who started the academy in 1997, told the news provider that such accusations are unfair and untrue. She explained that family members and friends were instrumental in the expansion of the academy…

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Lynacre Academy

FOUNDER, BOARD BLAME EACH OTHER FOR LYNACRE ACADEMY'S DEMISE; February 17, 2008; Dallas Morning News (TX)

Everyone knew something was amiss at Lynacre Academy – its school board members, its accountant and Texas Education Agency regulators charged with monitoring charter schools.

But nobody fixed it, and the school that was supposed to help poor, struggling students in South Dallas ran out of money and closed on Feb. 1.

What happened, and why did $750,000 in state funding disappear?

"The money went somewhere; where it went, I don't know," said Shari Bruce, the board's president.

Ms. Bruce, other Lynacre school board members and the school's former accountant say former superintendent Delores Beall misspent funds and destroyed records between the school's opening day in 1999 and her dismissal in 2006.

Ms. Beall could not be reached for comment. No one has officially charged her with criminal wrongdoing in connection with missing money at the school, and one relative who worked at the school said Ms. Beall never asked her to do anything improper.

The Lynacre school case raises serious questions about Ms. Beall's stewardship, her school board's oversight and TEA procedures for safeguarding taxpayer money.

Lynacre's closing cast 73 students adrift in the middle of the school year. Also left amid the shambles is an ongoing lawsuit between Ms. Beall and the school board that sheds light on their accusations against each other…

In fall 1999, many of the students who enrolled in the new I Am That I Am charter school had flunked out or been kicked out of other schools.

The school's name would later be changed to Lynacre Academy.

Along the way, Ms. Beall continued to run the I Am That I Am Training Center for after-school homework help. The training center's board also served as the charter school's governing board.

During the school's eight years, Ms. Beall hired three of her four children to work at the school.

The first signs of trouble emerged in 2002 when Ms. Beall's daughter, Denise Jones, was acting as school attendance clerk. She reported inflated attendance figures to TEA, which funnels state money to schools based on attendance. Ms. Beall admitted the error and Lynacre was forced to pay back $200,000, court records show.

The record-keeping debacle led the board to fire Ms. Jones in 2003, according to court records. Then, Ms. Beall hired her daughter-in-law, Melody White, to keep the attendance records. In their response to Ms. Beall's wrongful termination lawsuit, school board members accused her of concealing her relationship with Ms. White.

At the time, the school's outside auditor noted that Lynacre officials were not properly recording cash payments, but board members say they didn't suspect trouble. They reviewed budgets at their quarterly meetings but didn't compare those plans with what school officials were actually spending.

"We never ever had the feeling anything was being hidden from us," said Patricia Crocker, the board's vice president.

The state received an unusual complaint in May 2005.

The aunt of a graduating Lynacre senior called Rep. Helen Giddings, D-Dallas, to complain about the school charging her nephew $900 for 30 days of absences before he could graduate.

"These people said they didn't have this kind of money," Ms. Giddings said. "I didn't think it would be true: Nobody would be asking a student to pay $900 to graduate."

But it was true.

The school had been charging seniors $30 for every day they were absent and an additional $260 for graduation expenses. The state prohibits both kinds of charges…

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Imagine Charter School at Firestone

SVVSD RENEWS IMAGINE’S CHARTER: SCHOOL BOARD STILL EXAMINING CHARTER SCHOOL POLICIES; January 13, 2011; Longmont Times-Call (CO) 

The St. Vrain Valley School District Board of Education on Wednesday renewed one charter school’s charter, then continued to grapple with how to handle applications for new charter schools.

Although the vote to renew Imagine Charter School at Firestone’s charter was unanimous, school board members raised concerns about its budget.

Only 32 percent of Imagine at Firestone’s revenue is spent on instruction, board vice president Rick Hammans said. The school’s 2010 audit showed $1.3 million of its $4.3 million revenue going to instruction.

The audit shows that Imagine at Firestone is paying its educational management provider — Imagine, Inc. — about 23.6 percent of its revenue, or $1 million, for the lease on its building and other equipment, and another 14.6 percent, or $625,000, for services.

Hammans urged Imagine at Firestone’s board of directors to make a “significant effort” to spend more money in the classrooms…

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Oceanside Charter School

APPEALS COURT RULES OCEANSIDE CHARTER SCHOOL MUST REPAY $350,000 FEDERAL GRANT; January 14, 2011; The Press of Atlantic City (NJ)

An appellate panel upheld an order for an Atlantic City charter school to repay a $350,000 federal grant to renovate a facility that was never built.

Oceanside Charter School was awarded four grants totaling nearly $1.9 million in 2002 to help it lease and renovate a building belonging to the Second Baptist Church across from the school on Bacharach Boulevard. But in 2004, the state Department of Education discovered that the building to be renovated with $354,765.04 of that money had not even been built, so it ordered the money returned.

An investigation also found that the school gave the money to two design contractors without publicly soliciting bids. Public bidding was a requirement of the grant program.

Additionally, the state Office of Compliance Investigation found in 2006 that the school and church never had a formal agreement.

Administrative Law Judge Joseph Martone and then-Education Commissioner Lucille Davy affirmed the decision Aug. 10, 2009, and Dec. 17, 2009, respectively. The school appealed but was denied in the panel's ruling made Friday…

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Pembroke Pines Charter High School

STUDENT WINS $1 IN FREE SPEECH FACEBOOK SETTLEMENT; December 28, 2010; NBCMIAMI.com

A buck doesn't go a long way these days, but it's probably the best dollar Katie Evans has ever earned.

The Pembroke Pines Charter High School grad is celebrating the end of a two-year battle over her first amendment rights that started when she declared her AP English teacher, Sarah Phelps, "the worst she ever had" on her Facebook page. The school cried cyberbullying and suspended Evans.

But the University of Florida student fought back, with the help of the ACLU, arguing that her statements were protected by the first amendment. She sued school principal Peter Bayer in 2008, and Bayer's attempt to have the case thrown out earlier this year was rejected by a judge, who stated that Evans' speech fell under the umbrella of protected speech.

Last week, instead of gearing up for a trial, Evans learned that a settlement had been reached, the Miami Herald reported. She will receive $15,000 for attorney's fees and $1 in nominal damages. More importantly, though, all records of the incident will be removed from her school file.

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